PAX East commences this week (!!!).

Got two for ya, here's Welcome to PAX: Panels...

We went on Vacation! And now we're back. But Penny Arcade always exists, and in precisely the correct amount. Penny Arcade cannot be created or destroyed.

My house is full of "incredibly advanced technology" which the term no longer applies to. I don't know if it is quite garbage yet, but it is - bare minimum - garbage adjacent. Some of it is, no doubt, adjacent to the garbage can.

You might have heard - either from me, or my dastardly opposite number Grobriel - that, having made the watch from the strip for reals, we immediately felt compelled to battle for it. Primed by years upon years of gruesome comic imagery we warred for days without ceasing on the lip of an active volcano until we realized we could not finish the other. It was then that we chose our allies, and the shape our conflict would take.

It's been so interesting to watch the Gear VR become a daily use device for Monsieur Greebs. He talked about it a little while ago, and it's still true. He talks to me as much about his face-phone as he does about the other games he's playing. Sure, occasionally he disappears or whatever, but maybe he's just watching a 3D version of The Martian while sitting on the moon. Which is a real thing he did.

You might have heard that Tycho and I will be battling each other in Overwatch at PAX East in just a couple weeks. If you haven’t heard about that then check out this page with all the details. Essentially we have each built a team of friends and we will be going head to head. The winner will get the Watch. That’s right, we actually made the watch and it’s going to start going back and forth between the real Gabe and Tycho. Or actually it might just stay with me, since I intend to win these whenever they pop up.

Oculus technology, in either of its incarnations, has a… well, we did do a strip about what it has. Let's see how many words these pictures are worth.

Internally, we refer to Quantum Break as Quorntum Brork. You can use that if you want. Consider the sentence before this sentence to be a license in perpetuity. I would have played more Quorntum Brork, but I spent the first half of this week filming something you don't even know exists. It'll be nice when PAX East rolls through, and all the stuff I'm spending every second of every day on can emerge blinkingly into the light. One thing that's been months coming, and another one you could honestly say years. I remembered about Acquisitions Incorporated last year, pledged to take it seriously, and I haven't forgotten.

Hi. Ok. I’m posting on the front page of Penny Arcade. Cool. No big deal. I can just write some stuff and everything will be fine, right? If I hurry up and finish writing this, I can even—maybe—start breathing again.

I’ve got a couple different VR setups at home and I’ve been really impressed with both of them. The Vive

I definitely, one hundred percent do not like therapists. I maintain a lot of really complicated illusions pretty much constantly, and I try to limit my exposure to the cleansing rays they emit. I legitimately don't like the feeling that I can be known, which I will admit is a strange position to hold for someone who tries hard, at least three times a week, to be understood. The difference is that I want you to. I don't want to be mentally flensed by some Goddamned illithid. And I double don't want to be assessed by proxy because Gabriel's default move - the one at the top of his menu stackl - is "tell people secrets so they will like him."

The Watch is a core piece of Penny Arcade Lore, going back virtually to the beginning of the comic. In a move we will have every opportunity to regret for years, we have made a real version of this Watch, and we're going to fight over it for your amusement in Overwatch. Check out the promotion page here. We'll drop the official Ally rosters next week!

I have a thing I do with my brow when I don't believe something Gabriel has said. In a given day, I'm usually given many opportunities to perform this maneuver. Indeed, occasionally I'm still doing it when he says something else I can't endorse, which saves time in the transition.

I haven't had time to see Batman Vs. Superman: Grim Suffix, because I have to constantly be regurgitating a slurry of masticated leaves into my larvae's leaf holes. And also because going somewhere, even for like three fucking hours, is a logistical challenge on par with the founding of a Phobos colony. Plus, you know. The Division.